Weeks 2 and 3 on the building site:

All farting, burping and swearing has resumed as normal on site, I’m taking this to mean that I have been accepted as one of them. Luckily I bought myself some radio earmuffs, they’r excellent for blocking out the sound of the hammers, drills and men’s bodily noises. 

Update: After wearing my new radio earmuffs only once, I accidentally left them in the vicinity of my Guinea pig who promptly ate all the wires and now they are just earmuffs, no more radio 😦
  

The toilet seat has gone missing completely from the porta-loo which is unfortunate but my new painter muscles are coming in handy for helping me to hover over the toilet without touching anything!

Also I’ve finally figured out that lunch time is for quietly eating lunch and all talk of Downton Abbey must be saved for texting the girls later on. Safe topics that seem to be welcomed however include: dogs, weekend plans and local news stories. Topics that are followed with an awkward silence include: yoga, eyebrow waxing and inquiries into where the toilet seat went.

We’ve been working with sand paper a lot this week so my hands are pretty raw, the foreman told me my hands will “harden up” soon and they won’t get so sore. I paused briefly before moisturising them like a lunatic in an effort to keep them soft and girly, I foresee a lot of raw hand days ahead but hey I’m still a woman!

  
My boss told me that my trial period is over and that I am officially one of the team! He looked as surprised as I was! The feeling of accomplishment was unfortunately ruined as I looked away from the job I was doing to answer him and managed to get paint in my eye and mouth as a result…
  

To be completely honest for a minute, I know I like to joke and portray the light side of the situation but changing careers is actually a very intimidating experience. Walking away from a job or a situation that you excel in to begin all over again in an entirely new environment is more than challenging, it’s terrifying. Walking onto that building site on my first day with absolutely no clue what I was doing took a hell of a lot of courage and I was seriously questioning my sanity, that being said, now that I have done it, it has brought me so much more confidence in myself. My advice to anyone thinking about making a change, job or otherwise, if there is something you want to do but you are scared; do it, be it, risk it, have no regrets, you are stronger than you know. “A diamond is a chunk of coal that did well under pressure”, I hope you are feeling as shiny as I am today 🙂